Posted on 05/26/2007 9:24:34 AM PDT by Sleeping Beauty
Some Scientists Worry That Sophisticated Center Will Distort Children's Views of Science
According to an ABC News poll, 60 percent of Americans believe God created the world in six days. In Petersburg, Ky., this weekend, a creation museum is opening that depicts a story far from what you may have learned in science class.
Exhibits at almost every natural history museum teach that dinosaurs are millions of years old, and that they died out long before human beings existed. But at the Creation Museum, they say God created dinosaurs and humans at the same time.
The Creation Museum, designed by the same man behind some of the attractions at Universal Studios in Florida, is a $27 million, high-tech sensory experience with animatronic dinosaurs and a movie theater with seats that shake.
The museum is intended to convince visitors that evolution is wrong and that the biblical story of life on earth from Adam and Eve to Noah's ark is scientifically verifiable.
The museum depicts Adam living with animals, including a dinosaur.
Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, the group that is funding the museum, says that only "secular scientists" would maintain that the first humans never lived with dinosaurs.
"[Scientists] can say that, but what's their evidence?" Ham says, insisting that "All land animals were made on day six."
Mainstream scientists worry that because the museum is so technically sophisticated, it could be effective in giving children a distorted view of science.
"That they'll show up in classrooms and say, 'Gee, Mrs. Brown, I went to this spiffy museum last summer and they say that everything you're teaching me is a lie,'" said Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Center for Science Education.
Ham believes that's what should happen.
"And I say, great. Amen. That's what this place is all about," he said. "It's meant to challenge people."
The stakes are high. The museum argues that evolution jeopardizes people's belief in the Bible and leads to social ills like pornography and abortion.
"In an evolutionary world view, why should you have things like absolute morality? Why would it be wrong to kill someone?" said Jason Lisle, of Answers in Genesis. "I'm not saying that evolutionists aren't moral. I'm saying they have no reason to be moral."
[more at the link]
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0324_050324_trexsofttissue.html
From the article:
Taken from a 70-million-year-old thighbone, the structures look like the blood vessels, cells, and proteins involved in bone formation. ...If protein sequences can be identified...If protein sequences can be identified, they can be compared to those of living animals. This might allow a better understanding of how different groups of animals are related.
Either way, 70 million years old does not lend much support to either young earth creation or coexistence of humans and dinosaurs.
Yeh, sure.
"Finding these tissues in dinosaurs changes the way we think about fossilization, because our theories of how fossils are preserved don't allow for this [soft-tissue preservation],"
But then again, there is alot more faith that Evo's have than Bible Believers.
The skeleton in which the medullary bone was found..."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/03/0324_050324_trexsofttissue_2.html
Nope. You just think that you live on a more Christan continent than we Europeans do. It is a silly self-suggestion. At first sight we could get the impression that Americans are indeed more religious than Europeans. De facto in your country some (not all) people simply make more noise about their Christianity with big TV-shows and disgusting public commitments about the most private experiences. Many of your politicians have to turn their churchgoing into a public act to be elected. We European Christians do not demand such from our leaders nor do we live our religiousness in the public.
Why?
Because it is simply unchristian. I recommend the reading of your bible:
And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
Mattew 6 (to me and my Christian life much more important than the Genesis)
As for restricted access to information, I suggest you suffer from that in your government schools. How much creation science evidence were you offered? Did you get to hear a debate? Did you get to read anything that questioned Darwinism? Were any of the weaknesses of Darwinian theory exposed? If not, you were brainwashed.
Well I send my kids on a private catholic school in Germany. They are of course taught about the Genesis just like I have been in the 70ties. I followed the debate in the US since many years because I read some American newspapers and I join American websites like here on FR. Since the so called "creation science evidence" is extremely funny for someone with a engineering and mathematical background like me, I could laugh about it if it would not be the other way around as you write it. Such dissemination through i.e. "homeschooling" families leads to brainwashed kids that believe into myths (I do not say Genesis is a myth, but it is senseless to lock it on details) that do not make any sense. Limited access to free information leaves for sure many children in a mental dungeon in your country. Being a real Christian means to have a choice. It is quite simple - for having the choice you need the whole information for the whole image. Those poor kids only possess over the information the spiritual leaders of their parents selected for them. Since the end of the cold war we find museums whose expositions are obviously pure propaganda-shows without any reference to reality only in North Korea. It is a tragedy to me that America has now joined into this exclusive club.
Guess what - such has to do with freedom. :(
I would think about it.
“Creationism cannot stand up to genuine scientific scrutiny, and it is this gambit of science that is infinitely more important than what is taught in some grade six science curriculum. This is why creationism will never be taken seriously outside of religious circles.”
Evolution is what cannot stand up to genuine scientific scrutiny, IMO.
As for your “one chapter of evolution in your whole school career” experience, it wasn’t mine! Evolution was propounded frequently, not just in science books, but also in literature and history/social studies courses.
I call Europe post-Christian because, by there own surveys, there are few professing Christians there. Also, church attendance is very low. So I don’t state it as an opinion, but as a measurable fact.
If you are going to ignore the “details” of Scripture, as you recommend, which ones are you going to ignore?
I am glad your kids, in private Catholic school, are going to apparently get both sides of the issue. It is nice to at least get some equal time!
Your suggest I read the Bible. I suggest you believe it! All of it, that is. Apparently, you at least believe parts.
Not only that, but in the 1930s it was common for high priced restaurants to serve Mammoth meat- recovered from under Ice in Siberia.
I have been told that Creationism is a combination of special creation and special delivery. A significant part of the science in evolution is how species are distributed, and specifically how they are not distributed (kangaroos not in South America). A large part of Darwin’s research had to do with how long various species’ seeds would be viable when soaked in water, and the new information from ocean currents then becomeing available from Royal Navy surveys. The information was gathered and of military significance when wind and water were major sources of power, but when steam power became common, there was little advantage to restricting access to wind and current data.
For a very low rate, you can have access to the Proceedings of the Royal Society where much of Darwin’s, Lord Kelvin’s, Reynolds’ and others.
” They don’t believe it will be found in ancient fables though. They keep an open mind about such things.”
I’m sorry, but I find that statement incongruous. It’s nonsensical.
Well you should know that being a member in one of the big christian churches costs lots of money in Germany. Due to Adolf Hitler (yes that was indeed his crazy idea - he made a treaty with the church in 1933 - 1934, the so called "Reichskonkordat") we Germans have to pay a church tax. Therefore the people who are left in the two big churches must have some reason for it, since they have to pay each year a impressive sum of money for their membership to Christendom. Here are a few numbers about the important confessions in Germany (from the CIA-factbook):
Protestant 34%, Roman Catholic 34%, Muslim 3.7%, unaffiliated or other 28.3%
At last we have 68 % of people who declare themselves as Christians and who pay each month lots of money for it (9% out of the high German income tax). You should admit that this number is simply too high that you have any right to speak about a "post-Christian" continent.
If you are going to ignore the “details” of Scripture, as you recommend, which ones are you going to ignore?
In example statements about time, numbers and stuff like that.
Your suggest I read the Bible. I suggest you believe it! All of it, that is. Apparently, you at least believe parts.
I believe into most parts.
So, the fossils do support the Creationist view that dinoeours lived with man, they are not just stone, but contain actual bones in them.
There's nothing unique about the specimen other than the fact that it's the first that's been examined really well," Horner concluded. Other dinosaurs, in other words, are probably similarly preserved.
Actually, the article that your side put out was long on conjecture and short on fact.
If the Tikaalik is a fish, then whatever other characteristics it has are irrelevant.
Find something that is moving from one species to another, that would be true transitional stage.
But ofcourse, the Evolutionists howl that this is an unfair demand.
That is why you guys start talking about leaps between species, to explain away the fact that you cannot find such a mutation that developed into a higher, more developed species.
Professing themselves to be wise they became fools.... who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served the creation more than the Creator, who is blessed forever Amen. (Rom.1:22,25)
Double-talk.
We are different within the same species-man.
What evolutionists have to show is a change from one species into another higher one for evolution to be true.
Creationists never argue against changes within species, but that even with those changes, they stay in their own 'kind' (birds are still birds, fish still fish, men are still men)
This "transitional" tag attached to fossils is only an affair of humanity. Quoth Wikipedia: "According to modern evolutionary theory, all populations of organisms are in transition. Therefore, a "transitional form" is a human construct that vividly represents a particular evolutionary stage, as recognized in hindsight."
LOL!
I like how you guys like to readjust the critera to make it fit your own system.
For it to be hindsight, you would have to show that the species changed from one species to another, not conjecture about it might have happened!
Evolution is species changing into other species of a higher order.
You have to show that is even possible, no less that it actually happened.
All you guys do is find a species that has some unusual charateristics for that species and start making up stories on how it became that way.
You are not proving anything, which is what science is suppose to do, you are just 'begging the question', saying 'evolution is true and here is how it must have happened.
Evolutionists and Creationists share one attribute-faith.
Finally, I have a question of my own: Did you read the article itself, or just the summary?
I read the link you gave me.
Now unless you can show that the fish was in a stage of transition,(a semi-fish), it is just another meaningless evolutionist attempt to cover up their lack of true evidence.
I bet you were really disappointed when you found out that those 'feathers' on that dinosaur were not really feathers.
But even if they had been, so what?
It would not have proven that dinosaurs' morphed into birds.
Nope. Scientists don’t make unwarranted assumptions. Science is still looking for the answer of creation. They don’t believe it will be found in ancient fables though. They keep an open mind about such things. I guess that’s why religion appeals to so many. Someones scribblings can be declared the final word on a subject and no further analysis needs to be applied.
No, a scientist has to work with God has given him to work with, creation.
The evolutionist wants to work with the given and ignore the ultimate question, how did anything get here.
As for those scribblings, they are far more accurate than anything that any evolutionist has conjectured about.
A evolutionists is not basing his views on objective factual science, since there is no evidence for evolution.
Nothing is moving from one species to another higher one.
Nothing has been found in the fossil record that shows anything like that ever occuring.
So the evolutionist is left with his faith, that the Bible is wrong and he is right, and the hope that there is no final judgement.
Those dates are assumptions by the evolutionists, believing that is when dinosaurs existed.
However, the issue of diagenesis, or the chemical changes that occur to fossil bone after it is buried (dissolution, recrystallization, replacement of bone by other minerals) raises doubts as to the value of the isotopic signal to interpret the physiology of ancient animals and the environmental constraints they lived under. The inherent assumption of stable istope anaylsis of ancient bone is that apatitic fossils are isotopically unaltered. This notion has been challenged by several scientists whose conclusions undermine current interpretations of dinosaur physiology and paleoenvironmental reconstructions based on stable isotope analysis.
Nice try. Read the article more closely.
Here is the pertinent passage:
A best age estimate is given at 69.1 ± 0.3 Ma using the weighted mean from K-Ar and 40Ar/39Ar analyses from several tephra units that bracket the dinosaur-bearing horizons.They are not dating the bones, so the paragraph you quoted to show that chemical changes in the bones makes dating them inaccurate does not even apply.
They are dating tephra layers (volcanic ash) above and below the layers which contain the bones.
Conclusion: the bones are not contemporaneous with humans. They are off by about 69 million years.
“What evolutionists have to show is a change from one species into another higher one for evolution to be true.”
What exactly is a “higher” species?
“Evolution is species changing into other species of a higher order.”
Again, what do you mean by “higher order”?
“Now unless you can show that the fish was in a stage of transition,(a semi-fish), it is just another meaningless evolutionist attempt to cover up their lack of true evidence.”
Tell me, what characteristics would this “semi-fish” have?
“Evolution is what cannot stand up to genuine scientific scrutiny, IMO.”
Really? Why do you think that?
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